Bully for You

By Gary Kittle

When Chris Haynes is beaten up one evening, a nightmare begins.
Struggling to cope as a single parent, Chris is attacked again – only this time the mugger uses his name and hints that he knows a secret about his volatile son, Bradley. Why does Bradley hate his father so much? And what does Chris have to feel so guilty about?
The mugger’s game intensifies, and Chris tries desperately to reach out to his son, suspecting that he alone holds the key to solving the mystery. But Bradley has a psychological game of his own to play, driven by resentment, rage and terror. He intends to put what he knows about Dad to his own ends, to punish his father for what he sees as the betrayal of his absent mother.
In this tense urban crime thriller, Chris is driven towards a mental breakdown, a victim of vigilante justice where the nature of his crime is never stated. What does the mugger really want? What role does Bradley's new school friend, Gordon have in this unending nightmare? Does he know the mugger too? And what is hidden under the floor of the Haynes’ summer house?
As the intimidation and violence escalates, someone is heading for a bloody fall, and someone stands to lose everything – even their life.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Gary Kittle
• Release date: Oct 13, 2015
• ISBN: 9781310373244

Gary Kittle

Gary Kittle is the author of thirteen eBooks. He was twice shortlisted for the Essex Book Festival Short Story Competition and his play 'Walking Through Wire' was staged (and filmed) in London in 2014. Many of his shorter screenplays have been filmed by Film Colchester and DT Film Productions. 'Data Protection', written by Gary for Dan Allen Films, was shortlisted for the Sci-fi London 48 Hour Film Competition. He has won the 1000 Word Challenge with 'The Uncertainty Principle', and twice been shortlisted, finishing runner-up with 'Kismet'. He was also runner-up in the Storgy Halloween Short Story Competition with 'The Gag Reflex'. He is also the author of a serial horror novel, 'A Town Called Benny', with episodes published fortnightly. Outside of self-publishing, Gary is also heavily involved with DT Film Productions. Their first full feature film, Dragged Up Dirty, on which Gary is an executive producer is due for release in 2023. The full-length documentary, Hearts Without Homes, on which Gary contributed as a writer, is also out this year. 'Crowded House' follows on from the success of 'The Hanging Rail'. Gary lives and writes in Wivenhoe, Essex, and strongly suspects that given his frantic writing schedule, he has developed the ability to travel through time. Visit him now at https://gkittle.wixsite.com/gary-kittle-author Where darkness rises.

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Chapter One

The house was full of shadows, but only one of them was his.

Chris switched on all the lights, but the brightness only made his headache worse. He closed his eyes and swallowed but someone had lodged a golf ball in his throat. He tried to shift it with gulps of sweet tea. Sicky tomorrow, he thought, as if this dark cloud had a silver lining. Or maybe it would be better to get an early night and from tomorrow pretend it had never happened. After all he’d just been in the wrong place at the wrong time. He poked out his tongue and winced: the stiff upper lip was his already. Fatigue set him swaying, and in the living room glare he could smell again the mugger’s breath tickling his cheek, the fingernails skewering his flesh…

Chapter Two

‘In… my jacket….’ Chris wheezed. ‘Wallet… mobile…’

From behind his ear came a spray of laughter. A meaty arm curled around his throat and yanked his head upward as a knee pressed down into his lower back, stimulating the need to inhale whilst making it physically impossible.

‘What… do you… want?’

‘Your dinner money, of course.’ The contemptuous laughter came again. ‘So be a good boy and hand it over.’

In an agony of stretching Chris slipped his hand into his trouser pocket and clawed its contents out onto the pavement. It wasn’t just the wallet and smart phone that were ignored; there was also a decent watch. Not a desperate drug addict, then. And certainly not a professional thief, not if he was only going to get away with £2.34 each time.

‘Take… it! Take it!’ And with a final yank of the forearm his assailant did just that…

Chapter Three

The sound of movement from above snapped Chris back into the present. Would Bradley even notice his cuts and bruises? Footsteps moved over his head and a door slammed. Here we go again, Chris thought. Just what I don’t need. The footsteps clumped down the stairs and Chris stared at the living room door. The handle bowed and the door crept open. It stopped, and for a brief moment Chris caught a phantom whiff of that fetid mugger’s breath. Then the door swept inward and there was Bradley. Does he even look like me? Chris wondered. It was hard to tell with that curtain of hair flopping about. Didn’t the school have any standards?

‘What happened?’ The tone of voice was flat, the facial expression neutral.

‘Tripped up,’ Chris replied. ‘Down some stairs.’

Bradley grunted and headed for the television, sweeping up the remote as he fell into the seat.

‘I’m all right, though,’ Chris added to the back of the boy’s head. No response. ‘You hungry?’ Again nothing. ‘Brad?’ He caught what might have been either a grunt or a belch. ‘I thought maybe Chinese?’ The volume from the television climbed. ‘Chinese it is then,’ Chris muttered, turning away to the kitchen.

Nearly a fortnight and she had hadn’t called him or even emailed. Tess was being deliberately cruel, and Chris was damned if he’d read those letters. They weren’t addressed to him anyway. It was a question of respect. He was still the man of the house, the head of the family. ‘You’re suffocating me,’ she’d complained. But the truth was their marriage had been a slow-motion car crash for the past three years, with both of them grappling for the steering wheel.

Snatching up the Chinese takeaway menu, he searched for something reasonably healthy. Telephone order completed Chris walked over to the kitchen window to close the blind. The moon cast its milky glow onto the lawn. Before he knew it the clocks would spring forward and he’d have to start mowing every fortnight. Not that Tess had ever done much in the garden except put the washing out. The garden fence was a wall of darkness; the summerhouse a solid featureless block staring back at him.

Movement caught his eye. Frowning, Chris leaned forward, his nose close to the cold glass. Outside all was still. A cat, perhaps? Or one of those urban foxes monopolising the news? He stared into the darkness, but the throbbing behind his eyes intensified and with a curse he tugged down on the blind cord. ‘Jumpy sod.’ He put out the crockery and cutlery; then on second thoughts a couple of trays so that they could eat in front of the television together. Even if there was no conversation they could still share the same air, surely?

Their Chinese meal arrived courtesy of a young boy who insisted on telling Chris he was Vietnamese. ‘That’s all right. I’m not planning on eating you.’ When he retold the gag his son accused him of being racist and headed for the stairs. If only Tess could see what she had done, walking out on an adolescent boy and his dutiful father. There had to be ‘someone else’.

Feeling gloomy Chris watched the television alone, drifting in and out of a doze; but when Crimewatch came on it seemed a good time to call it a night.

Chapter Four

Bradley Haynes hoped that flight of stairs was long and hard, the steps jagged. Over breakfast the next morning he’d noticed more bruising on his father’s face, and he seemed restricted in his movements. Good job. Since she’d been gone the house was drowned in silence. Mothers didn’t abandon their children, as Dad had claimed, no matter what they were going through.

In the first few days of that unexpected quiet he thought about contacting the police, but realising his father would just turn on the charm - Brad hasn’t taken this very well. He’s in denial, officer - he remained tight-lipped. He didn’t want to be the next member of the family to ‘disappear’. Dad kept trying to reassure Bradley that Mum would call him up any day now, but every day that she didn’t his misgivings about the summerhouse grew stronger.

When he wasn’t in school, Bradley took to his room, trying to figure out how he could get back at his father. Sometimes he felt as if the crown of his skull could blow clean off with all the rage bubbling away underneath. Several teachers had criticized his schoolwork, and though he was trying to keep up appearances, he knew a ‘welfare meeting’ with Dad was inevitable. ‘It’s his mum, you see. She’s…gone.’ And she wasn’t coming back, Bradley knew. Thank God, then, for Gordon.

‘Hey,